Relating Our Studies

One of the advantages to our online discussion is to be dealing with two different subjects at the same time. This allows us to have variety in the discussion. It also allows the person who is focused on one aspect of ministry to have some diversion when he interacts with someone dealing with another topic.

Now, to take things a step further, and maybe in some case it will call for some creative thought, let's see if we can show how the two different topics relate to each other. How will Tyler's sudies help Sean, and how will Sean's studies help Tyler?

I think you could see that this could get really "wild" (in a good sense of course) when we get even more involved in the discussions.

Sean, you have moved right in. Any apprehensions you had about how we are going to do this should be helped by my words of encouragement: Good job! And, of course, Tyler this is "old hat" to you, but doesn't having one more in the mix spice things up somewhat?

Have a great weekend. Will either of you be having opportunities to preach soon?

Randy

New signups

The next three weeks, people may sign up to join our courses. After that, it will be too late to catch up.

If you know anyone interesed in joining our online community, encourage them to drop by and sign up between now and then.

More About the New Platform

I plan today to learn about the new platform for these courses. When I get it downloaded on my computer, we will experiment with it some over the next few weeks.

At present, continue to post your comments at the Week 6 entry.

Have a great day!

A New Day!

We had a good "live" Preachers' Meeting last night.

I am excited to have Sean Emery joining our ranks. He will be starting on a course that will overlap with our previous one for the rest of this week, and the two weeks following.

So, technically, he is on Week 1 while Tyler and I are finishing week 6.

Sean's book is quite long, so he has agreed to let his course run for 11 weeks, so that he will finish his first course at the same time Tyler finishes his second course.

I think the online discussion will be very good.

Sean, I remember some of the things we talked about at Camp Jericho last summer. I see that you do some deep reading, and I am looking forward to your insights.

For both of you, please place your comments at the entry for Week 6 Posts.

Randy

Week 6 Posts

Please post your comments for week 6 below:

Beginning of Week 6

We are at the beginning of our last 3 weeks.

Please count the number of chapters or DVD lessons remaining and divide that number by three. Then remind us of the name of your book and list the titles of the chapters we will be discussing this week.

End of Week 5

We are now 5/8 of the way through the course. Tomorrow night will be the time for our regular "live" preachers' meeting. I look forward to meeting with all of our fellow pastors who will show up, and be able to give them a progress report on what we have been doing. Hopefully, we will get some to be willing to sign up for future courses. I don't know for sure how we do this ovelap, but we might be able to try having two things going at once. Ideally, it would be better if we were all on the same schedule, but we will see what happens.

Tyler, you hve done an excellent job. I hope you will be able to encourage some others to join us.

Randy
(Dr. Randy Carney)

The Best Advice Columnist

Who is the best advice columnist? For years, it was an ongoing competition between Ann Landers and her sister Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby). In recent times, people may think of Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil.

Paul dealt with some very practical issues in his letters. Perhaps that is why that part of the Bible is so widely read. But, is the Bible just another self-help book? Is it just a cafeteria of advice? We know that when we read or hear modern-day advice gurus when can take what sounds good, and through away the rest. Can we do that with Paul's writings? If not, what's the difference?

The Need to Occupy

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He told of the fact that the Lord was going to come again. Nothing was wrong with what Paul wrote (or course there wasn't--it was Scripture), but some of the people took his instructions to heart and expected immediate fulfillment of his words.

When Paul wrote II Thessalonians, he set the matter straight. We should expect the Lord to come again, just as they should have nearly two thousand years ago, but we shouldn't just sit down and do nothing while waiting for His return.

We are to occupy, or stay busy in the things of the Lord, until He does return.

Expect? Yes. Wait? Yes. But most of all keep working until Jesus comes!

The Ministry of Paul

The apostle Paul had quite a ministry. The Gospel spread quickly after the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached his famous sermon. The Jewish Christians were scattered abroad because of persecution. They began to witness to their newfound faith when they returned to their homes, or to their new locations, if they moved because of persecution.

Paul, however, did not stay in one place very long. He went everywhere preaching the Word. That is why his journeys are called "missionary" journeys.

Thank God for those who witness for Christ as they stay in their same locations, but we also thank the Lord for those who are willing to travel, as Paul did, in order to share the Gospel with those who have not heard.

Week 5 Posts

Please place your comments for week 5 below. As usual, tell us the name of the book and how many chapters you have left. Divide that number by four. Then tell us the names of the chapters we will be discussing this week.

Week 5

Now, we are on the downhill slide.

We have had a group from Australia in this week, and I forgot to put up the posting area for the new week.

Any visitors may join us by looking at the archives, and then clicking on any of the words that say "Comments". I would suggest, however, that you place your first comments under the "Week 5 Posts" area.

Halfway Through!

We are halfway through this course.

Tyler, how demanding do you think it would have been if we had tried to do this in 4 or 5 weeks instead of 8?

Part of the reason that it seems possible in our case is because we did not have extra assignments, quizzes and tests like you might have in another course following a format similar to this.

If you think we could have easily made it in four or five weeks, do you think it would be different if you had a longer textbook, or if you had to watch a certain number of DVD's (such as 35 or more)?

You have done an excellent job to this point.

Let me know what your experience with this has been as far as length goes.

Randy
(Dr. Randy Carney)

Peter's Enthusiasm for the Task

Seldom right, but never in doubt. That's how one friend describes himself. I've heard others say it too. That seemed to be the case of Peter. I admire his enthusiasm and willingness to put himself wholly into any task. When I say that was the case of Peter, it may not be that he was seldom right, but when he was wrong, he was wrong with just as much dedication as what he had when he was right.

Take the example of when Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Peter said, "You shall never wash my feet." Then when Jesus said that if he didn't allow Him to wash his feet, he would have no part with Jesus, Peter replied something like, "Well, then, not only my feet, but my hands and my face also!"

We sometimes criticize Peter for taking his eyes off Jesus and sinking when he was walking on the water, but we must remember that Peter was the only one out of the boat.

Dedication? Yes! Let's strive to have it, but when we find we are wrong, let's pour ouselves in the new direction with the same enthusiasm as we had before when we were zealous but misguided.

What do you like best about Peter?

Post your comment at the end of the Week 4 entry.

New Platform

I am looking into a new platform that would allow us to organize our posts into different threads according to topic. At present, though the blog has served us well, and we will continue to use it even if we do add the new platform, all of our comments are being placed chronologically in the order they are received.

I am still trying to learn how to implement my part of the platform. I will keep you posted on the progress.

Is It Presumptious to Encourage God?!

Upon first glance the answer to that question would be, "yes." Who are we to think that we could encourage God?

When Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, his mother seemed to encourage him. As her son, this was natural for her to be encouraging. As the Son of God, to whom she was talking, it was a little presumtious. Perhaps that accounts somewhat for his comment to His mother. Can we, however, encourage God?

I guess it encourages God when we show our love for Him (not that He needs our encouragement), when we worship Him, and when we obey Him.

I've always wondered about statements in Scripture that say, "Bless the Lord, O my Soul." A following verse says, "and all that is within me. Bless His Holy name." We know that God blesses us by gving us happiness and joy. Do we bless the Lord by bringing Him joy? Maybe we bless Him by simply not grieving His Spirit. Maybe it is not presumtious after all to say that we could encourage (or at least "bless") God.

Any thoughts? How could we bless the Lord? Does this "encourage" Him?

Post your comments under the Week 4 Posts entry. Visitors are welcome to comment too.

Week 4 Posts

Let's post the rest of our comments for week 4 here. Sorry, I forgot to put this up yesterday, and you rightly commented under yesterday's post. You do not have to repeat them here.

Visitors may comment by clicking on the word, "comments," below and by signing up for a gmail account if they do not already have one.

Beginning of Week 4

We are coming to the half-way point of the course.

Tyler - You are well on your way to completing this course. Please do the same as you did last week. Count the number of DVD's or chapters that we have not yet discussed. Divide that by 4, and tell us how many chapters we will be discussing this week. Please give the name of the book again, and the titles of the chapters we will need to discuss this week.

Have a great day!

End of Week 3

We have come to the end of Week 3 (at least by midnight tonight, it will be the end of week 3.) We are over one-third of the way through our journey.

Tyler, you have been a brave soul, rowing through these uncharted waters. Sometime, before we finish this course, I would like for us to try out another site for publishing our comments. This one has served us well, but the one I am thinking about may allow us to organize our comments in a better fashion. I will let you know when we get things in place to try it.

Yesterday was a good day. We had many ladies present, and our special speaker, my daughter-in-law, Brenda Carney, did an excellent job of encouraging our ladies to see how special it is to be able to leave a godly heritage.

Last night, we had Karen Peck and New River at Church. They did an excellent job of singing and ministering. We had several people come to the altar, and one young man received Jesus as his personal Savior! One exciting thing about this professional group was their generosity. When they heard about Rusty and Brenda's commitment to go as missionaries to Japan, they gave them a sizable offering--and that was even before they found out what offering they, the singing group I mean, would receive from us!

I hope things went well for everyone else, and that all of your mothers had a wonderful Mother's Day.

The Mother of Jesus

Tomorrow is Mothers' Day.

Tyler's book desribes the birth and childhood of Jesus. One of the things we know about Mary is that she was faithful to God in all things (at least all things that are reported in Scripture.) She was willing to face misunderstanding, wrongly induced shame and ridicule when she agreed willingly to submit to her role as being the mother of a child conceived by the Holy Spirit. She was faithful, knowing that her husband may not understand and that he might put her away. Fortunately, Joseph was a man of faith also. True, it did take visits from heavenly messengers to convince both of them, but they did submit to the will of God regardless of what those around them would think.

Mary was delighted, I think, at the birth of her first-born son. She watched as he was subject to her and Joseph in all things. She saw him display his great wisdom and knowledge, actually the wisdom of all the ages, while he talked with the religious leaders in the temple when he was twelve years old. Through her life, she pondered all of these things in her heart.

She was present and spoke to him right before he performed his first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. She watched his ministry, heard of his teachings, heard reports of the rise of his popularity, and then the sad reports of the decline of his popularity.

She was even with him at the time of his crucifixion. When others rejoiced at His Resurrection, who had more memories for rejoicing than did Mary?

Mary shows the heart of a good mother who supports her son through thick and thin. We thank God for all the godly mothers He has placed in our lives.

What insights and thoughts do you have concerning the Mother of Jesus? Post your comments under the entry, "Week 3 Posts."

The Childhood of Jesus

We don't seem to know very much about the childhood of Jesus.

I have always been intrigued by the thought that there were other children in the family. How often is the second child challenged and frustrated by trying to measure up to an older sibling? The other children in the lineup also face this situation. Perhaps they hear, "Why can't you be like your brother (or sister)?" Just think what it would be like, however, to have a perfect older brother. That would be one you really could not measure up to.

I'm sure the sinful nature of His brothers kept them from really seeing that Jesus was indeed as good as he really was. It took something earth shaking (Well, there was an earthquake at the time of the crucifixion, wasn't there?) to bring them to the realization of the truth. The fact of the Resurrection impacted them all, just like it does all the rest of us who have become believers throughout history.

Just think about it. Jesus was subject unto his parents. He was subject unto them even though He knew more than they did. He was subject unto them even though they were sinful (and He was not!).

What thoughts and insights do you have concerning the childhood of Jesus? Please post your comments under the "Week 3 Posts" entry.

The Virgin Birth-Does It Matter?

Our book has a chapter that discusses the birth of Jesus.

Some might ask, "Does it really matter?" However, this along with the fact that God Created the Heavens and the Earth, is one of the foundational items of the Christian faith. If these two facts are fables, how could the rest of the words of Scripture be trusted? We want to claim salvation, but the promises which provide for our assurance of salvation come from the same book which speaks of Creation and of the virgin birth of Jesus.

If God Created many aspects of Creation by simply speaking them into existence, how hard is it to believe that he could bring his Son into his fleshly body through a miraculous means? If we believe other miracles in the Bible, why would we want to reject such a central truth of Scripture? The virgin birth is also important in that it confirms the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Visitors are encouraged to leave their comments. You may click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the Week 3 posts. You may have to sign up with Google to do so. This will not cost you anything, and there should be instructions as to how to do this when you click on the comments below the Week 3 posts. We would welcome your input. You also can view all of the posts by clicking on the months at the left.

Asynchronous Learning

The learning approach we are using in this course is asynchronous learning. If watches are synchronized, they are set to the same time. In synchronous learning, things happen at the same time. A group of students meet together at the same time and listen to a lecture. Or, a group meets at the same time and engages in a discussion. Some of this could be similar to what happens in a chat room.

An asynchronous approach means that a group does not have to meet at the same time for a lecture or a discussion or for the learning to take place. Yes, we are heavily inovolved in discussing topics, but we can log on at any time of day and join in the discussion. Another advantage of an asynchronous approach is that you can think a little about your comments and responses. People who feel that they don't do well "off the cuff" appreciate the ability to take time to think through their answers.

An asynchronous discussion becomes quite exciting when several people get involved in the discussion even if they are not all online at the same time.

Visitors are encouraged to leave their comments. You may click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the Week 3 post. You may have to sign up with Google to do so. This will not cost you anything, and there should be instructions as to how to do this when you click on the comments below. We would welcome your input. You also can view all of the posts by clicking on the months at the left.

Week 3 Posts

Please insert your comments for week 3 by clicking on the comments at the bottom of this post.

Visitors are encouraged to leave their comments. You may click on the word "comments" at the bottom of this post. You may have to sign up with Google to do so. This will not cost you anything, and there should be instructions as to how to do this when you click on the comments below. We would welcome your input. You also can view all of the posts by clicking on the months at the left.

Beginning of Week 3

Tyler - You are well on your way to completing this course. Please do the same as you did last week. Count the number of DVD's or chapters that we have not yet discussed. Divide that by 5, and tell us how many chapters we will be discussing this week. Please give the name of the book again, and the titles of the chapters we will need to discuss this week.

We may be switching to new platform in a week or two that will allow us to organize our courses better. That platform, if I understand it correctly, will allow us to start posts on certain topics, and allow us to put our comments in at the right place instead of always at the end. Until then, however, this blog has served us well.

End of Week 2

We have come to the end of our first full week of dealing with the academics of this course. We have gotten used to the format, and we can see how the book Tyler has been studying could be helpful to use in the ministry. Next week, we look forward to delving into the study more deeply.
We did have a good Quarterly Meeting this weekend, and we had good services at church yesterday.

The end of week 2 signals that we are one-fourth of the way through this course!

Today is the last day for a signup for anyone wanting to join us. If you do wish to sign up, please click on the little triangle beside the word April, and read through all the posts, starting at the bottom and ending up with today's. Along the way, you will discover what is necessary for signing up.

After midnight, tonight, we will still encourage you to join, but you will do so as a visitor.

If you want to comment as a visitor today, please click on the triangle to the left beside the word, "April." Then you will notice an entry called, "Week 2 Posts." You will have the opportunity to make a comment at the bottom where it says to post a comment. You may have to sign up for a Google account. I would suggest you sign up for a "gmail" account. Doing so is free, and it will give you the capability of commenting on this site.

The Canon and Inspiration of Scripture

What was the process of inspiration like?



Here is an example that I presented in the class "Sifting Sensibly: The Thinking Man's Guide to Biblical Faith."



"Someone may say, upon reading the different books of the Bible, the different authors write with different styles. How can the claim be that these are all God's words. A comparison would be to view an imaginary business, say a lawyer's office. Perhaps the lawyer has a legal brief he needs to present. He also is very busy, so he looks around his law firm and finds a third-year law student and gives him the assignment to write the legal brief. The lawyer tells the student the arguments he wants presented, but he leaves it with the student for the actual writing. After the student works on the brief, he gives it back to the lawyer. Up to this point, the style is completely the student's. The lawyer reads the brief very carefully. He finds many sentences written by the student that express the ideas he wants to put forth. Sometimes he will find a word that is not strong enough, so he will cross out that word and replace it with his own. At other times, he replaces entire sentences or paragraphs with his own wording. Sometimes he will give input and ask the student to rewrite a certain section. Finally the brief is finished when the lawyer approves it. At this point, the brief is no longer the student's. It is now the lawyer's. Some of it will contain style or flavoring that is unique to the student, but the lawyer claims responsibility for what is said in the entire draft. The brief, then represents exactly what the lawyer wants communicated."



I believe the process of the inspiration of Scripture was similar. God superintended the process in such a way that when His servant had in his mind a certain wording of the truth that God wanted communicated, and God in effect said, "Yes, that's what I want expressed," He allowed the writer to write down those very words. That accounts for different human "styles." However, when His servant came up with something contrary to what God wanted expressed (at least in the case of Scripture writing) God replaced what the human would have written with an exact word that He chose. The end result was that what was written as Scripture was exactly what and how God wanted it expressed. Also, in some cases, the wording carried the style of the human writers because they expressed what God wanted said in an acceptable way based on the idea that God placed in their minds.



Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your study of the canon of Scripture.

Quarterly Meeting

I look forward to seeing many friends at the quarterly meeting this weekend. As far as our posting goes, we have looked at the content of the book. Could we deepen our focus a little more by thinking about how we could apply some of the information we have been learning?

How to Disagree with an Author

Of course you can disagree with an author based solely on opinion, but some problems come up when you do not use logical thinking to disagree with an author. We can have discussions and agree to disagree.

In what cases, however, can you legitimately disagree with an author. Generally, you should be able to do one of four things when you want to express a disagreement.

1. You can show where the author seems to be uninformed. You may be able to show some ideas, facts, circumstances, or any kind of information of which the author seemed to be unaware.

2. You can show where the author seems to be misinformed. What incorrect information has he been given? You would have to be able to show the correct information and to show where the information he has been given is incorrect.

3. You can show where the author seems to be underinformed. He may have part of the information, but there may be "more to the story." You would have to show the larger picture or give the other relevant information when disagreeing with an author in this instance. You would also perhaps be showing the author that his analysis is incomplete.

4. You can show where the author seems to be illogical. You would have to be able to show why you think the author's conclusions do not follow from the reasons he has given. Another thing to show would be where the author seems to be inconsistent in his reasoning.

(For more information for this type of thinking, see Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren's excellent work: How to Read a Book.)

Visitors are welcome and encouraged to participate by commenting on our comments section. Do this by going to the "Week 2 Posts" area and clicking on the word "comments" at the bottom of that post. You will be directed to sign up. You may have to get a Google account. That is easy: just follow the directions and sign up for a gmail account. (This is free.) Then you can join us. Other things we found out should be explained as you look at the links to the left of this post.